DHC Staff

Libby Smigel was confirmed as Executive Director of the Dance Heritage Coalition in November 2009, after stepping in as Acting Executive Director in July 2009. Smigel served as the DHC's Project Director, during which time she led a project to define best practices of applying the Copyright Act's fair use doctrine in essential preservation work, programs, and services of dance archives, libraries, and museums. (Publication is available as a booklet and PDF.) She also coordinated a Save America's Treasures grant to assist endangered dance company archives. Earlier, as a freelance consultant, Smigel worked on the DHC traveling exhibition "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: The First 100" and drafted the DHC booklet "Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide."

Smigel has taught undergrad and graduate courses in drama, dance, and English at an array of higher education institutions, including American University, George Washington University, the University of Maryland, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, York University, and Rochester Institute of Technology. She is an active dance researcher and editor. Most recently, she has been actively involved in the development of reference publications. She is co-editing a two-volume series on Icons of American Dance, has contributed entries on dance figures for the Dictionary of American Biography, and was consulted on the antiquity entries for the International Encyclopedia of Dance. She currently serves as Area Chair for Dance and Culture for the American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Association (PCA/ACA), for which she also sits on the board of directors, and she served on the first board of directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars.

Imogen Smith became Project Manager for the DHC in January 2011. She previously served as Archival Consultant for the DHC' Dance Archives Assessment Project, visiting New York-based dance companies and reporting on the scope and preservation/access needs of their archives. She has also served as a consultant for the Dance Notation Bureau, creating a manual for their online catalogue. From 2003-2009 she worked as a cataloguer for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, processing large archival collections of film and video, including major collections from Jerome Robbins, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Jacob' Pillow, and New York City Ballet. During this time she was a member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. Previous jobs included cataloguing artworks at the Morgan Library & Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. Smith earned her Master' in Library and Information Science from Simmons College in 2002.

She is also the author of two books on film history, Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy and In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City (due out from McFarland in 2011). She is a regular contributor to Bright Lights Film Journal and other film publications, and has written about art for The Threepenny Review and for gallery exhibition catalogues; she has lectured and moderated symposia at the New York Public Library and the Lancaster Museum of Art. She has studied ballet, modern and ballroom dance, and continues to dance as a hobby.

Tanisha Jones serves as Consultant to the DHC Secure Media Network project. Jones is the Coordinator of the Jerome Robbins Archive of the Recorded Moving Image in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Before to joining the Dance Division in July 2007, she was the 2006-2007 Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) Research Fellow in the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department at New York University (NYU) Libraries. She worked as a research assistant for the Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP): "Preserving Digital Public Television," a cooperative project with NYU, Thirteen/WNET, WGBH Boston, PBS, and the Library of Congress. Additionally, Jones has presented her work at professional conferences and organizations such as the American Library Association (ALA), Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), Joint Technical Symposium (JTS), and the Archivists' Round Table of New York (ART). She served on the Board of Directors of the New York-based nonprofit organization Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP) from 2005 - 2009 and was recently elected to IMAP's Advisory Council. Jones received her master's degree in 2005 from New York University as a graduate of the inaugural class of Tisch School of the Arts' Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program.

Lela Sewell-Williams serves as Project Archivist to the Artist's Legacy Toolkit project. She is also the Dance Archivist and Adjunct Professor at Howard University and the Dance Archivist of the International Association of Blacks in Dance. Her archival and curatorial expertise includes serving as assistant curator of manuscripts at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and as manuscript librarian at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. She has also offered archival services to the South Carolina State University Historical Collection, the History Factory in Chantilly, Virginia, the University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center, and the Robert Johnson Collection of dance materials in Pittsburgh, among other posts. Her training includes a master's in Archives, Museums, and Historical Editing from Duquesne University.

Ilsa Bush is Coordinator of Special Projects for the Dance Heritage Coalition. She collects data and information for grant submissions and other DHC uses, coordinates projects with partnerships, drafts and edits proposal materials, and facilitates project progress as needed. She also teaches dance at the George Washington University and Joy of Motion Dance Center. Bush received her B.A. from Harvard University and her J.D. from Arizona State University. She practiced law in Arizona and Washington, DC.

Elizabeth Jackson currently serves as Legal Counsel for the Dance Heritage Coalition. She answers questions on fair use and copyright law. Jackson previously worked in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic under Peter Jaszi, Victoria Phillips, and Nabila Isa-Odidi. She has recently published two articles on copyright issues: “The Copyright Office’s Protection of Fair Uses Under the DMCA: Why the Rulemaking Proceedings Might be Unsustainable and Solutions for their Survival” in the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and “A Look at the Supreme Court Justices’ Individual Biases Toward Copyright Law: Prediction and Reflection on the Golan v. Holder Decision” in the American University Intellectual Property Law Brief.

While in law school, Jackson worked in the General Counsel’s office of Hard Rock Café International, Inc., the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies. She has her B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University, M.A. in Literature from Florida State University, and J.D. from American University.

Mary Wegmann serves as the Project Archivist for the Records Management project. Prior to this, she worked at the Dance Notation Bureau, organizing and processing their history and research files through the Council on Library and Information Resources' "Hidden Collections" program. These materials contain correspondence, papers, ephemera, and choreographic notes that relate to dance theory and performance, specifically highlighting the development of the DNB and Labanotation.

Mary graduated with a BA in Sociology from Vassar College and earned her Masters in Information Science with a portfolio in Museum Studies at the University of Texas in Austin. While in school, Mary worked with Austin's local fringe festival to create an archival management plan that will aid the festival's administrators and performers in donating records to the Austin History Center. She has worked on archival processing projects at ArtPace San Antonio, the Fine Arts Library at the University of Texas, the Alexander Architectural Archive, and the Harry Ransom Center. Her research interests include documentation, preservation, and access issues for time-based works and collaborations between artists and archivists.

Patsy Gay began working with Dance Heritage Coalition in 2011 as an Archival/Preservation Technician Fellow. Currently, Patsy is creating an inventory of New York City based choreographic duo Eiko & Koma’s collection. This inventory of their archival paper and photographic material, moving image and audio items, and costumes and sets, complements Eiko & Koma's three-year Retrospective Project. Patsy recently completed an inventory for David Gordon and his Pick Up Performance Co(s)'s archive, which included more than 600 moving image items, almost 200 audio recordings, and hundreds of files housing photographs, programs, scripts, choreographic notes, and more, all of which document his significant career in both dance and theater. Over the past year Patsy also assisted DHC fellow Kat Bell with the inventory project at Dance Theatre of Harlem. Additionally, Patsy is an Adjunct Instructor with Florida State University’s FSU in NYC program and is now the Archivist and Administrative Assistant for the Pick Up Performance Co(s). Patsy received her B.A. at Case Western Reserve University in Theater Arts (Dance) and Art History and her M.A. at The Florida State University in American Dance Studies.

Johanna Seltzer is DHC's Website Administrator, coordinating several aspects of DHC's website upgrade. Seltzer brings a wealth of experience in technology project management and internet communications, recently working for diverse organizations such as Dance/USA, Balance Interactive, and River's Edge Yoga. Seltzer has a BA in Dance from the University of Maryland, and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Management from American University. In 2007, she left her Project Director position at Dance/MetroDC (a local service organization for the regional dance community) to work as a contractor in technology, communications, and finance.